243: Cessna Plane

| wonko

I have had this model, described via hand-drawn diagrams for ages and thought it a good one to finish the month with:

This is a tidy little plane, named Cessna after the style of modern single engine aircraft it is modeled on. I am not, however, sure who the designer is – can anyone enlighten me?

A clever use of the bird base with some ingenious accordion pleating to liberate the wings and some interesting pucker pleating to form tail and propeller, there is some very dense folding to shape the fusilage and a cute domed cover for the cockpit, even some vestigial landing gear underneath.

Happy with this as a first fold, can see myself trying to refine it so it is tidier – am sure I could tease some wheels and maybe master the propeller a little better in subsequent folds.

242: Trainset

| wonko

Now when I was a kid I did not have a trainset – you know, one of those Hornsby jobbies with the locomotive, carriages and transformer-powered track:

Not sure if I actually wanted one, but there you go – I had friends who did, right down to the chemical you put a drop of in the smokestack to generate puffs of steam in a (from a kids eye perspective at least) realistic way.

This is a set of folds based on the same box-pleating trick, and really there is little to stop you making a whole swagger of types of carriages using it – I made 3 variations but can imagine more. An interesting cross pleat and collapse was used (in some cases many times) in each model, useful to remember.

Although these are technically separate models, I present them as one as they would, individually, be uninspiring.

241: Un Papillion de Joisel

| wonko

Eric Joisel was a treasure in the paper folding community – this is a butterfly designed by Michael LaFosse in memory of him:

A simple fold with much potential for modelling, the body ends up being thick and the wings delicate

Happy with this as a first fold, hope you like it.

240: The Stork Brings Babies

| wonko

That’s right children, when the mummy and the daddy love each other very much, the stork visits them and brings them a baby:

Such a strange lie so often promulgated in years gone by to obviate an awkward conversation about the details of how birds and bees … well, you know … actually, that is even more confusing than the facts when you think about it – and what have birds and bees got to do with the process anyway?

This  is a simple and cute origami model to celebrate the many recent births (Dianne, Amanda, Brendan) – now the adventure really begins for these parents.

This is an old-school origami model that would probably be labelled “Kirigami” (a model that involves a cut sheet of paper) from Neal Elias – essentially it is 2 bird-bases grafted together via s split, allowing the 2 parts of the model to be folded carefully with each other.

Taken from Robert Harbin’s “Secrets of Origami”, a book in much need of repair nowadays as it’s binding is failing. Today’s folders would look to see if they could achieve this model from one sheet, with some clever box pleating to boot i suspect – interestingly no one has tried as of yet (well, that I can find at least).

New parentage – I remember those years with great fondness – that exhilarating (and daunting) moment when you realise that pink, wrinkled alien is relying on you totally for love and attention. Cherish the time you have with your kids – they grow up all too fast.

239: Little Red Riding Hood

| wonko

Someone gave me a copy of foreign version of “Red Riding Hood” that I missed in the cinema that I thought was artistically interesting. A modern slant on a village terrorised by a werewolf, so I thought I would fold “Red”:

“Oh Grandma, what big eyes you have, ears, teeth …”, yeah, it was never going to end well. This model is designed by Stephen Weiss and reminds me a lot of the box pleating figure work of Neal Elias.

From a single A3-cut square we tease out a ruffled skirt, arms, head and feet and it results in a poseable model – very neat indeed. The instructions stop at the basic figure, so I added elbows, knees and tried to fashion feet (the thickness of the paper there made anything but “club feet” problematic – with thinner paper I think I could have fashioned shoes and socks for her.

When I first saw this model I thought that I would have to use tissue foil for it – indeed the recommended paper was much bigger and thinner but I decided to try and nurse copy paper through the fold and am delighted with the results. This would be a perfect little “dolly” for a well behaved little girl (Kit, are you listening? )

238: Daffodil Day

| wonko

In Australia, August 26 this year is nominated as “Daffodil Day”:

We celebrate the lives of those brave people who have fought cancer in all it’s forms – to do so we use a flower, the fragile symbol of hope and beauty:

I made a white one, then folded 4 in colour and scattered then strategically around my school. I remembered, if few others did initially. I do this in memory of some dear friends that lost the fight and suffer no more.

A complex and time-consuming fold,  the flower head is dense and made, unusually from a hexagon cut from an A3 sheet, it collapses down to a life-size bloom via some interesting sinking, swivels and squash folds. An interesting (and cathartic) fold designed by Paul Jackson, taken from a book loaned to me by Amanda (thanks @ackygirl)

I hope you remembered Daffodil Day, or at the very least people you know who have been touched by Cancer.

237: Fuse’s Triangle Box

| wonko

Tomoko Fuse is renowned for her intricate boxes – this one is a version of her triangle box:

A modular, top and bottom each made up of 3 modules that interlock and lace together to create a curious container

I must explore these modular boxes some more, when I have more time, quite happy with this as my first fold however.

236: Sipho Mabona’s Koi Carp

| wonko

When I first saw installation art, in origami, folded and designed by Sipho Mabona, I knew I wanted to do stuff like that also – this koi is elegant and beautiful:

Lovely dorsal and pectoral fins, graceful tail and head complete with gaping mouth.

There is much to admire about this model – it is tricksey to tease the fish from a square and Mabona achieves this fiarly simply – very happy with this as my first fold, althought it was a little fiddly to do the mouth crimps at this scale (I used an A4 cut square).

I can imagine schools of these, and indeed that is how Mabona displays them – in slight size variations floating in groups as if being fed in a pond – lovely stuff, feel privileged to fold it.

You can have a go here: pdf

235: Charlie the Unicorn

| wonko

Now I have been told off by Dr Winston O’Boogie for folding creepy crawlys and scary things and was told I should concentrate on unicorns and rainbows:

This is John Montrol’s Unicorn – a relatively simple fold with a nice horsey shape.

So much paper folded inside, it ends up having a plump body and very thick legs and a lovely twirly unicorn stickey-uppey horney thing

This will do me for unicorns for the moment, although I will be on the look out for another one as the horse shape is one much folded by origami designers as it is quite difficult to capture the equine profile.

234: Goat

| wonko

A simple model for today:

A nice little goat – poseable, with some lovely horns, this goaty model is free standing and an interesting use of a waterbomb at one end of a 2×1 rectangle.

Staff meeting, late home, felt a little like livestock being led to slaughter, you get that. Top that off with falling asleep in front of the telly.

233: Kawahata’s Locust

| wonko

Now I have not folded a model from Fumiaki Kawahata before because they looked so difficult:

The instructions I have come from her lovely book “Insects Volume 1” and are all in Japanese (problem number 1) and use a completely different set of sumbols to indivate things like repeat, turn over, sink, spontaneously combust etc which are also in Japanese.

I ended up just going on the before and after diagrams to make sense of what was happening when – not a very efficient technique on a 120 step model with dozens of “repeat behind” that I had to guess but, you know, that is part of the adventure -right?

This is a lovely model on all counts – the body is plump and 3d, the wings delicate 9single layer) with wing cover, feet including lovely sproingy back legs all int eh right place, lovely little antennae. plump and pleated abdomen – wow!

Originally I was going to use 18cm tissue foil and I am soooo glad I chose larger as the fiddly detail near the end would not have been possible with my fat clumsy fingers in a smaller format. I could not imagine trying to tackle this with normal paper as some of the sections are 12 layers thick and were difficult maneuvers even with tissue foil.

I will fold more from this book – the techniques are amazing and the models so lifelike – surely a rival to Robert Lang in terms of realism and complexity of model.

You may applaud now, I do deserve it for managing to get to the end with only a little bit of swearing.

232: Face-hugger

| wonko

My second favorite sci-fi film of all time (Alien) brought new forms of terror to the screen:

In a well tried formula, a nasty makes itself on board a spaceship firmly clamped to the face of an inquisitive explorer (John Hurt), implanting an egg in the host’s tummy before scaring everyone and dropping dead. The newly hatched nasty then systematically, and with great suspense, eats everyone – you get that. This prototype xenomorph is all the more terifying because, based on Geiger illustrations, organically modelled after a sinister hand.

I like that there was always a life-cycle implicit in the Alien films, and that there was an innate social order amongst the xenmporphs also.

This model was a little trickey to fold – I had to nurse the copy paper as at many junctures it looked like it would disintegrate – I managed the fold without any paper fatigue I am proud to say and it is a worthy proto alien to compliment the adult I folded earlier in the year

Insectoid, reptilian, with gripsey fingers for walking, prehensile tail to wrap around the neck of the victim, off lung sacks for gas exchange, a well thought out model indeed (even if the instruction annotations were bewildering – thankfully I am confident enough to improvise when I cannot make head nor tail of what is supposed to go where)..

231: Tomoko Fuse’s Snail

| wonko

Now I found a collection of spirals and boxes by paper legend Tomoko Fuse, and the snail looked hoopy, so I decided to fold it:

A relatively simple fold, with an elegant curved pleat forms the shell and a simple shape for the foot topped off with lovely eye stalks.

If I was to fold this again I would use less symmetrical pleats, so the creases get closer together as the shell gets smaller, still it is a lovely bit of geometry.

Was puzzling what to do as today’s fold, glad I chose this.

230: Swiss Army Knife

| wonko

When I first saw this model I knew I had to fold it:

The very idea of a FUNCTIONING Swiss Army Knife seemed undelievable but here it is – Blade, Awl, Bottle Opener and Screwdriver all that folds away much the same as the metal one does – very neat.

A relatively simple fold in the end – some thick layers and the hinges are difficult for copy paper, but I really like this model – a masterpiece of design.

Jeremy Shafer’s “Orgiami to Astonish and Amuse” is an amazing collection of everyday objects folded from paper, a book I can see myself returning to again and again.

You may applaud now, I am so chuffed it worked out so nice.

229: Satoshi’s TRex

| wonko

Now it is a pubic holiday here in Brisbane for the RNA, and rather than do something show-related, I thought I wold “treat” myself to a Satoshi Kamiya model:

Mistake # 1 – ignoring the suggested paper size – I Folded this from an 18cm square, suggested minimum was 35cm – lol. It became increasingly obvious as I got further and further into this torturous fold that scale was an issue, but I soldiered on with my fat and clumsy fingers.

Budding Scientists: What is wrong with the picture above? )Answer follows*.

So much paper torture but the result, from the outside is actually fairly simple in appearance. I like the body proportions, and the modelability of the eyes and head (difficult to see at this scale). It is a pity this model is not free standing (I had to use a blob of blutac and a bent paper clip as support).

This fold was great for a bunch of reasons, including the exacting nature of the pre-creasing (half millimeters count … mistake #2), a stonkingly difficult sink half way in which baffled me for nearly an hour as I unfolded, refolded and wondered how the layers would ever sort themselves out.

I am happy with this as a first fold, and will fold this model again with a larger format paper. I did not use copy paper but figured with 120 steps, tissue foil was probably the way to go as some of the primary creases get major fatigue.

*Worked out what was wrong with the second picture? It is a WELL recognised fact that TRexes NEVER ate paper, silly.